Reseña

Panama, Panama! Some may not even realize that it is a country, let alone know where it is. They may think of a hat, a fiscal paradise for offshore companies (as with the infamous “Panama Papers”), or (if inspired by the John le Carré novel “The Tailor of Panama”) a fictional spy web. A more widely recognized symbol of the nation, and the topic of this book, is the waterway that has been a major artery of international trade for more than 100 years.
When I began writing the book, the objective was to describe how the basic aspiration for an enlarged Panama Canal was transformed into reality once the administration of the waterway was transferred to Panama. The narrative would mainly relate the components of the expanded Canal and their technical characteristics. It became obvious very quickly that, to appreciate the intricacies of the new locks, one would first have to understand the existing locks and their history. As a result, the scope and complexity of the book swelled instantly.
To really appreciate the history of the waterway, one must consider the different currents that shaped its birth, going back all the way to the origins of the Isthmus of Panama itself to get the full story. It was the movement of tectonic plates, thought to have occurred approximately between 12 million and 2.8 million years ago, that brought the continents of North America and South America together in this narrow stretch.
After Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the isthmus and found the Pacific Ocean in 1513, the potential rewards achievable by creating a navigable path between the two oceans became more and more obvious, but the difficulties in harnessing Panama’s strategic potential would prove enormous. It was not only the existence of a mountain that stretched in its narrowest range over 8.5 miles of what is today Panama and was covered by a dense tropical rainforest but also the humid climate that sheltered insects, snakes and crocodiles.
Digging a path by hand through the hills to let ships pass through was unthinkable. This restricted the passage to tracks that had been created by chopping through the rainforest. As excavation technology improved after the Industrial Revolution, and trade had mushroomed with the development of vast empires, the conditions were set for men of vision to attempt feats that could only have been dreamed of centuries before. But little did they know that below the luxurious vegetation that covered the hilly mountains lay a treacherous geological formation.
One of the first to emerge was Ferdinand de Lesseps, a former diplomat turned impresario who undertook, at the age of 48, to revive a 50-year-old dream of Napoleon I to build a sea-level canal across the Isthmus of Suez. It had begun with political difficulties, as he faced stubborn opposition from the British, who, fearing that their Indian possessions would be threatened, tried to use their influence on Constantinople to stop the project. After much diplomatic persuasion, de Lesseps succeeded in inaugurating the first interoceanic canal in 1869, greatly helped by the rapid progress in excavation and dredging technology induced by the Industrial Revolution. The curtain closed with his international coronation.
Eager for an encore, he could not resist the opportunity to build a second interoceanic canal in Panama. Ten years later in Paris, the 1879 International Congress for Study of an Interoceanic Canal gathered experts from many nations to debate on the alternatives for building a canal across the Central American isthmus. De Lesseps would skillfully persuade the assembly that the appropriate location was at Panama, the narrowest stretch of land between the oceans, and that it should be a sea-level canal. It would be the start of a long effort that would end in tragedy.
Overconfident after his success with the Suez Canal, de Lesseps embarked on an ill-planned venture whose difficulties and costs were grossly underestimated. He thought correctly that, by fighting for influence in the region, the British and the U.S. would neutralize each other, and that he could deal more freely with Colombia, which controlled the path across its province of Panama.
However, France was much further away from Panama than from Suez, making the supply chain much longer and the control at such distance much more difficult. Furthermore, Panama had a climate, health hazards and a treacherous geology that would exhaust the insufficient funds and decimate an enthusiastic and patriotic corps of the best French engineers available at the time. Corruption crept into the scene and, when it became obvious that the plan as conceived was “mission impossible,” the ensuing bankruptcy reverberated through the French economy at a scale that was even more traumatic than the crisis experienced by the U.S. 120 years later after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. A new French company was created to maintain the equipment, progress the work as much as possible with the limited funds that were available and find a buyer to take over
the project.
The struggle for influence in the Western Hemisphere was an important backdrop for the scenes that are played out as the focus of this book. The European powers that had dominated the Western Hemisphere a century before had only limited possessions in the Caribbean. Spain was clinging to Cuba and Puerto Rico, Britain to the Mosquito Coast (shared by Nicaragua and Honduras today) plus many islands, while the French still retained some islands. The U.S. was completing its conquest of the West and was becoming an important industrial power that needed some passages to facilitate the development of its new possessions west of the Rockies.
The gold rush would give the opportunity for a railroad to be constructed in Panama in 1855, while northward, Cornelius Vanderbilt would organize in Nicaragua the transit of fortune seekers to the west coast and also secure a concession to build a canal there, which would soon be abandoned for greener pastures in the U.S.
As the United States was becoming a continental power, the British started to pay more attention to the rising power of its former colony and tried to restrain U.S. power to build a canal and control it single handedly.
Just as Britain had been watching Suez, the U.S. was watching French progress in Panama. However, in 1887, Aniceto Menocal, a Cuban-born American civil engineer, secured from Nicaragua a concession to build a canal there. A U.S. canal company was formed, and work was conducted in Nicaragua until 1893, when the funds ran out. Despite the absence of state funding, U.S. attention remained riveted on Nicaragua, rather than Panama. A commission was appointed in 1895 to look into the feasibility of the Nicaraguan option.
As it was possible by purchasing canal assets from the new French company to derive the benefits of the work already accomplished, a second commission was appointed by President William McKinley to compare the Nicaraguan and Panamanian alternatives in 1897. From there on, a tug of war would ensue, and the forces described later in the book would eventually turn the tide so the U.S. would choose Panama as the site for the megaproject.
More than anything, this is a book about engineering written by an engineer. As such, it differs from the many other books that have been written about Panama Canal history. The most popular of these, “The Path between the Seas” by David McCullough, contains almost everything relevant to the construction of the Canal and was a valuable guide.
This book may not have the same kind of entertaining anecdotes that make for pleasant bedside reading, but it does seek to crystallize in the reader´s mind an appreciation of the remarkable engineering and production feats that were achieved both during the initial construction and the recent expansion. It also seeks to familiarize the reader with the developments in shipping technology and in the commercial shipping industry, which were the drivers behind the initial interoceanic canals of Suez and Panama and their subsequent enlargements. Another goal is to provide scholars with in-depth analyses of core problems and important
technical themes.
Catering to Canal aficionados, the annexes at the end of the book cover subjects as diverse as the mechanics of slides, dam engineering, tonnage and tolls, shipping economics, and the fundamentals of climatology. Another element in the final sections of the book contains a glossary and explanatory notes that will help provide an understanding of the text without interrupting its flow. To preclude the need for cumbersome conversions, measurements are generally expressed in their original contexts (with the English system used more in the chapters about the U.S. construction effort and the metric system being more prevalent in the volume on the Panamanian era).
The title of the book “A Water Bridge Over the Mountains” is a description of the problems encountered and solution found during the Canal construction. It is also a tribute to the men who had the vision of a
high-level, as opposed to a sea-level, canal in Panama. They were actors in a thrilling play that would last almost four decades. They were often in the minority but courageously maintained their stand.
It started in France with Baron (Nicholas Joseph Adolphe) Godin de Lépinay, who bravely faced de Lesseps. It would then be the turn of Philippe Jean Bunau Varilla and Alexandre Gustave Eiffel to try to convince de Lesseps to amend his plans for a sea-level canal and accept a provisional lock canal. It was too late, however, as the money for the French attempt had run out. The debate reignited when John F. Stevens — who, unlike John F. Wallace, believed resolutely in a lock canal — sided with the minority of the international board of engineers that had been appointed in 1906 by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to decide the issue. It would only end with a vote in Congress after the testimony of Stevens and the backing of Roosevelt.
The irony is that the foundation for the water bridge across the isthmus was already present in the form of a low pass over the mountain ridge that separated the Atlantic and the Pacific regions. All that was needed was to add the steps to reach the pass and the water to fill the spaces. Had de Lesseps been able to visualize the concept, he would have listened to Godin de Lépinay, and there might have been a French canal in the Colombian province of Panama.
From a practical point of view, comparing the Panama Canal to a bridge makes it much easier to sort out and present the facts in a logical order. It will hopefully help the reader better understand the engineering difficulties that beset the original builders, as well as the engineers and contractors who worked on the Panamanian Third Set of Locks Project1. These types of problems, as fascinating as they may be, are often technically complex. To avoid lengthy descriptive texts, many illustrations were introduced to give the reader a quick and adequate understanding.
This book relates the history of the Panama epopee up to the building of the expanded Panama Canal features in the 21st century. It is similar to a compelling modern TV series in that it highlights the drama of the Canal story and features transitions between the many different periods, settings and themes that are part of this epic tale.
The first volume sets the stage, describes the U.S. construction era and explains the operation of the Canal for the remainder of the century. The second celebrates Panama´s successful management of the expansion program and closes with a brief review of the likely challenges to be facing the Canal.
A major theme of the first volume is the unfortunate French attempt in Panama and its doomed sea-level canal plan. The history of the rising power at the time — the United States of America — and its need to acquire a role as a ranking global power is another theme. The natural ambitions of this rising industrial power were invigorated by the decreasing realm of the Spanish Empire and the decline of British influence in the New World. A third story relates how, under unfavorable odds, Panama was chosen at the expense of Nicaragua. This tug of war is thrilling, as whenever there was a problem in Panama, pressures for switching back the project to Nicaragua appeared, and the issue was undecided right up to the finish line.
The episodes not to miss cover the American venture in Panama, from its imperious seizure of a Canal Zone to the conclusion of the construction of the Canal over a period of 10 years. It features a series of scenes starring the successive U.S. chief engineers, starting with a flop under the Wallace administration, continuing with the stage building under the Stevens’ impulse and culminating in a brilliantly orchestrated opera under George W. Goethals, who had to find a way to consolidate his power in a civilian regime.
Weaved into the stories of the problems faced by the chief engineers is an study of the successive Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) regimes and how from the original ICC governing articles, legislated under the Spooner Act to prevent graft rather than promote efficiency, were gradually tinkered by Roosevelt to enable an efficient management in Panama without constant interference from Washington. Later chapters, broken down into building components that mirror the elements of a bridge, describe in detail the various problems encountered by the U.S. engineers in building the water bridge.
Although not within the technical purview of this book, the readers should be aware that, after the inauguration of the Canal in 1914 and until its transfer to Panama at the end of the century, the waterway would be run by the United States as a public utility, primarily under governors and administrators with military backgrounds. Although mentioned only briefly, full credit should be given to the United States for the manner of its disengagement from the Canal once it recognized the legitimacy of Panama’s position and the waterway’s diminishing strategic importance. A seamless transition was meticulously planned and impeccably executed over 20 years, greatly facilitating the modern sequel that is now being acted out by a Panamanian administrator and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) workforce, under the Panamanian board of directors.
The second volume on the Panamanian Canal begins with the political developments that led to the transfer of the waterway. It examines how, given the impending of shortage of capacity, the ACP had to rapidly define parameters to get to a preliminary design and budget that could be presented to the Panamanian people in a referendum2. Just as in the first volume the various components of the expansion plan are broken down to give a clearer understanding of the complexity of the design and its functioning.
In covering this major undertaking, I did not delve into the complex interplay between the ACP and the different contractors, but rather concentrated on the key elements that illustrate the engineering sophistication of the expanded Canal and make it worthy of the original project, which was a marvelous piece of American engineering. This book is a tribute to the ACP, which managed, in one and a half decades, not merely to immediately demonstrate competence in running the Canal, but also to provide, the Panamanian nation with a state-of-the-art waterway — within an ecological framework.
Water, which will, in all likelihood, become the scarcest natural resource during this century, is the life of the Canal, and the means to conserve it were core concerns of the expansion program planners and designers. This worry about future needs of humanity probably drove me to think of the Panama Canal as a “water bridge over the mountains.”
I hope the book will be a useful tool for understanding the success and failure of the various players in the many past stages of the Panama Canal saga and preparing for future development as the drama continues. Those who are already associated with the waterway may find fresh inspiration, and perhaps some young aspiring actors will be stimulated enough to step onto the Canal stage to guarantee the continued triumphant run for the many future episodes.